'NORWAY IS LIKE A HOSPITAL'. VEHICLES FOR (RE-)CONSTRUCTING THE NATIONHOOD AMONG POLISH IMMIGRANTS IN OSLO

The article is a general anthropological survey of the complex issues of Polish diaspora in Norway. The reflections and interpretations are based on the fieldwork conducted by the author among Polish economic immigrants in Oslo during the summer of 2009 for the interdisciplinary academic project CULCOM (‘Cultural Complexity in the New Norway'). The main goal of the fieldwork was to examine the tools for reconstructing the nationhood in immigrants' everyday life, as well as the particular nationalism shaped via social and economic class, gender relations and particular cultural background. The present article, however, focuses only on the first issue. Therefore, it deals with the most banal aspects of immigrants' daily routine which at the first glance seem to be irrelevant and less important. Yet, by using anthropological perspective one may observe that the same daily practices involve various and complex moments of national identification. As a result, the article describes and analyzes the national praxis of Polish immigrant workers living in one of the Oslo districts. What seems to be interesting is the specific process of constructing the hermetic and national space by the immigrants in the context of Norwegian reality. This process, in turn, includes various tools for banal nationalism.